the_mysterious_mr_enterfandomcom-20200214-history
This Week on The Internet: Twitter Did a Thing
People have asked me to talk about what has recently happened with Twitter. Remember back in October where I kind of over-reacted from that perspective? I found out that you could report someone for “disagreeing with my opinion.” And people told me that it was just there to weed out bunk reports? So, less than six months later we’ve got the Twitter Trust & Safety Council. This has everyone up and arms. Not talking about any of the groups within it yet, the purpose of the Twitter Trust & Safety Council (which yes, does sound Orwellian) is stated to be thus: “a new and foundational part of our strategy to ensure that people feel safe expressing themselves on Twitter.... “our Trust & Safety Council will help us tap into the expertise and input of organizations at the intersection of these issues more efficiently and quickly. In developing the Council, we are taking a global and inclusive approach so that we can hear a diversity of voices from organizations including: * Safety advocates, academics, and researchers focused on minors, media literacy, digital citizenship, and efforts around greater compassion and empathy on the internet. * Grassroots advocacy organizations that rely on Twitter to build movements and momentum * Community groups with an acute need to prevent abuse, harassment, and bullying, as well as mental health and suicide prevention.” This is destined to fail. I can tell you that, right now. Either people will stop using Twitter, or people will over abuse reporting and the system will be largely ineffective. I personally feel that the former is much more likely. Sorry Twitter, but there are “no grassroots advocacy organizations that rely on Twitter.” With Twitter you can only send 140 characters to… the public, essentially. When it comes to building an organization and gaining momentum, literally any other social media platform would be better. “Greater compassion and empathy on the internet.” I’d love that. I’d also love it if we can breathe in space without a spacesuit. As I’ve learned, Twitter has taken upon an impossible task. Everything else in this screams censorship. It took me awhile to get to this point, but I am strongly against censorship. Let me give you some background. I’m an internet personality. This generally means that I’ve got a lot of people who will come to my defense and there are a lot of people who hate my guts. Those who have been here on DeviantArt for awhile may have noticed that there are occasionally people who will copy-paste the same message here on my page. Like an iceberg, you only see a tiny fraction of what’s really there. People have dedicated entire forums and websites to not only hatred of me, but hatred of my friends as well. Every so often I get a notification of someone trying to get my password to anything and trying to hack into my accounts. I get death threats all the time. I’ve even had to deal with legitimate cyber stalking, and had a hard time preventing it because of terrible forums to go about getting them to stop. All of this, and I’m still against censorship. And because I know there’s an elephant in the room, what I said in my troll video. Look, I can be against both censorship and trolling. Those aren’t mutually exclusive. Just like I can be for the legalization of a drug, and still thinking that people shouldn’t take that drug. Also, my belief is that the more people troll the ammo they give people who want to censor others. The two problems feed into each other, and at least one of them is using the other as a scapegoat. So, if I’m against censorship, I feel that I also have to be against trolling. Now, let’s talk about censorship… we’ve got a lot to talk about. Censorship isn’t a black and white issue. In the United States, we have the Freedom of Speech, and pretty much every democracy in the world has this freedom because it is important. It is the most important right that a citizenry has. For a government to become totalitarian, they need to remove the Freedom of Speech. I made a video going into this awhile back: www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7_blr… The United States government has… had mixed results with this. For example, many of our public government-funded schools have banned books list. And banning books undermines freedom of speech. The two most common reasons for banning books are language (The Adventures of Huck-Finn and The Catcher in the Rye) and sexual themes (Flowers for Algernon). This makes sense, we don’t want kids and young adults exposed to these ideas before they’re ready. And therein lies the rub: the point of censorship. It’s not about preventing people from speaking. It’s preventing people from listening. Let me put it this way. If someone walks up to you and calls you a jackass, how do you feel? This depends on a lot of factors. If you’re obviously not a jackass, and everyone knows you’re not a jackass, it’s obvious that this guy here is just an asshole and trying to rile you up. But… what if he wasn’t the first? What if everyone was calling you a jackass? Well, considering you have the same freedom of speech that he does, you do have the ability to defend yourself. Or change to not be a jackass, because you very well might be a jackass. Or, you could try to get a law passed that stops people from calling you a jackass. People are still going to think you’re a jackass, but (assuming that people will follow the law), they can’t tell each other that they think you’re a jackass. (And you very well are probably a jackass in this scenario because you got a law passed restricting people’s freedom of speech). These people see that others are faking smiles around you out of fear from the law. When you imagine a government in your place, you can see how this can be a very dangerous thing. Criticism makes us better. When we censor something, it proves that we’re afraid over it. And in some ways, it gives them power. If something is a truly bad idea, it tends to die in public discourse. For example, we don’t censor the Westboro Baptist Church or the Ku Klux Klan. And guess what? They’re seen as monsters with terrible ideas in pretty much all of our society. Their ideas don’t get very far. “B-but, what if a bunch of people with a terrible idea get together and actually make a difference?” Every type of government has a dark side, and this is democracy’s. It tends to be called “tyranny of the majority” and has lead to lynchings, kangaroo courts, demonization, and witch burnings. No form of government is perfect (yes, this includes anarchy). Do you know what didn’t stop these things from happening? Censorship and things like political correctness. So, let’s talk about political correctness. As someone who does not use racist, sexist, ableist slurs and has despised those who do, I am against political correctness. As its defined now, political correctness is “language, policies, or measures which are intended not to offend or disadvantage any particular group of people in society.” It sounds good, and there’s definitely merit to the idea. Only assholes go out of their way to intentionally offend someone. However, there’s a lot of rub with this. Political correctness is essentially ideas and language that are married to the status quo. For example, saying that gay marriage should be legal in the 70’s or 80’s would be like saying it shouldn’t be legal now. You’d get the same effect. Saying that women are capable of voting or working outside the home would, once upon the same time, be an opinion that offends the status quo. Being “politically correct” means to not offend the status quo. And by forcing people into this role, you may be preventing tomorrow’s abolitionists. Remember, we don’t need political correctness to hate racist and sexist assholes. We really don’t. Most good and nice people know that racism and sexism are wrong. Yeah, what political correctness, or at least the effect any other name does, is allow “those terrible people to get together and form a difference.” What is politically correct is defined by the majority. And every positive social change had to fight against the “politically correct” status quo. It forces us to fall into mob mentality. Something you’re doing, right now, every single day, is probably going to be politically incorrect or thought of as socially disgusting in 100, 200 years. No one time thinks that their abhorrent behavior is wrong, at the time. At this point, you should know the stories of young people who were cyberbullied to suicide. Sometimes it’s because these bullies perceive them to be unattractive, and sometimes it’s because of some aspect of their character. The people who bullied them into suicide are assholes, and monsters On the other side of the coin, we have people like Justine Sacco. She posted a politically incorrect joke on twitter. After a 10 hour flight she was the number one topic on twitter. People were immediately trying to get her fired, and many people wanted a picture of her when she landed to further bring her into shame. Even deleting her twitter account did not end the abuse. A lot of people seem to follow the mantra of “it’s okay for us to do this if they’ve done something bad.” No… no. If you want to end cyberbullying, or “cyber violence” as you’re calling it (I’ll get into that soon), you have to end doing it to anyone. By creating a reasonable target, you’ve created a reason for it to be there. In Canada at least, there’s already been at least one person brought to court for harassment via Twitter. And there are many more stories of people trying to get other people fired, for arguments and altercations through Twitter. In the case of Justine Sacco, I have to wonder… what exactly would this Trust & Safety Council do? Who would they see in the wrong? For me, a bad joke is a bad joke but lynch mobs are wrong. What does “greater compassion and empathy” mean in her scenario? Would it mean… helping her see the light in a reasonable manner? I doubt it. But, what if someone says something that’s… not politically correct, but it is reality correct “most domestic abuse is reciprocal. Imagining that it’s a strong man beating down on a weak woman discriminates against other, more common forms of abuse; men; women who don’t fill the ideal victim standard; and LGBT couples.” This goes against the common narrative, and isn’t very politically correct, but I do have sources and I’ve researched it well. So… if someone were to get all the bullying that Justine Sacco got for it… if it got the same amount of vitriolic hate that she got when she told a joke… what would happen. Remember, with wide sweeping statements like this, you could either side with the initial commenter every single time (and there are some fucking morons out there), or you could side with the lynch mob every single time (and there are some people who do speak unpopular truths). “But they could do this on a case-by-case basis.” No they can’t. YouTube uses computers that are absolutely broken, to get every single case they can. People have been complaining about it for years. DeviantArt actually does use real people with their abuse policies, and it could take up to months to deal with this person who is cyber-stalking or harassing you. From the about section of the Twitter Safety & Trust Council: “Twitter empowers every voice to shape the world. But you can’t do that unless you feel safe and confident enough to express yourself freely and connect with the world around you…” That is the stupidest fucking shit I’ve ever heard. If you’re feeling 100% safe and confident expressing yourself, you’re probably talking into an echo chamber. I mean, think of the Civil Rights Movement. They certainly could shape the world. And they intentionally put themselves in physical and social danger to do so. To say that they couldn’t is not only offensive, it is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen written on the internet. Bravo, twitter. “To help give your voice more power, Twitter does not tolerate behavior intended to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence another user’s voice.” User: Hey… I’ve got some evidence that Ranter32 is a liar and scamming his fans. Twitter: Sorry, you’re banned. This is clearly intimidation, trying to silence Ranter32. If this is enforced anything like other internet standards like the DMCA, this is what your future on twitter will look like. When it comes to the internet, it seems like the bigger guy always wins. Ranter32, since he has more followers will probably be taken more seriously than the one random user trying to call him out. There are more than 40 organizations as a part of this, apparently. What exactly any of their parts to play in this, is at present, unknown. This is scary. When someone is coming into what is marketed “for the common good” you should know exactly what they’re able to do. What they’re supposed to do, and the ability to look for any loopholes. It just says that they “provide input.” That could mean anything. Hell, right now I’m providing input on twitter policies. Everyone using the #RIPTwitter hashtag is providing input on twitter policies. Do I have anything to say about any of these organizations? Sure… but I’d rather not bog this down with forty-odd subsections. For the most part, them being a part of this project says a lot more than anything they say about themselves. Most of them seem to have their hearts in the right place. Some of them really do want to crack down on cyberbullying, like Cyber Civil Rights Initiative is celebrating cracking down on revenge porn. Some of them, unfortunately fall into the politically correct, reality wrong segment. “The National Domestic Violence Hotline” claims to adapted from the Duluth Model of Power. The Duluth Model is…a… theory (although I don’t think it’s ever been tested like a scientific theory and grown beyond a hypothesis). It basically says that all abuse is caused by men being socialized to control women. Which, pretty much by design, neglects to include LGBT domestic abuse and female-on-male abuse. It also discounts abuse caused by financial issues, mental disorders, and drug addiction. I do not support any domestic violence/abuse resource that uses the Duluth Model of power. I am going to take a stand against Twitter’s censorship policies, and I hope that you do as well. This may mean leaving twitter for real this time. Or it may mean over-using this policy until it becomes unfeasible. Also, this is just a nitpick, but "a diversity" is grammatically incorrect. Category:Miscellaneous